Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint shows how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a person produces in everyday life.  It measures the amount of fossil fuels and electricity someone uses up as well as the carbon footprint of the products they buy.

When we use our cars or heat our homes with oil or natural gas, carbon dioxide andvarious other gases are set free.  These emissions lead to a denser atmosphereand global warming.

You can measure your carbon footprint by using a calculator that you can find onvarious websites. It shows you in which way your living habits damage the environment. The carbon footprint usually measured in tons of CO2 per year. In America for example, every citizen produces about 28 tons of carbon dioxide and other dangerous gases a year, in Great Britain the amount is about 10 tons.

How to reduce your carbon footprint

There are many actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint.

The way we travel, for example, has a major impact on our environment. Use your bike or walk for short distances. Public transport is a way of getting to places without putting a burden on the environment. If you use your car see to it that it ismaintained correctly and that it does not burn more fuel than it should.

Buying local food is also a way of curbing emissions into the atmosphere. Many environmental experts, however, argue that it often saves energy to buy food that is produced naturally in faraway places than consuming food grown locally ingreenhouses.

In your home you can contribute to saving energy by turning off lights if you don’t need them or by avoiding the use of air conditioners, which contribute a lot to global warming and emit CFCs that destroy the ozone layer. Electrical appliances can save energy if you set them to standby mode.

Recycling plastic, glass and paper can also reduce your carbon footprint drastically.

It is also vital to persuade others to take the same steps that you do. Only if we concentrate on reducing carbon emissions together can we hope to make our environment better.

Words

• amount = how much
• appliance = small machine that does household work
• argue = here: to have a different opinion
• avoid = keep away from
• burden = load, weight
• calculator = software or small machine that can do mathematic factions
• carbon dioxide = the gas that is produced when animals breathe out or when carbon is burned in the air
• CFC = chlorofluorocarbons = gases in refrigerators and spray cans  that damage the ozone layer
• citizen = a person who lives in a country and has rights there
• consume = hear: eat
• contribute = help
• curb = lower, reduce
• dense = thick
• drastically = very much
• electricity = power that is carried in wires and cables and is used to produce heat or light or make machines work
• emission =  gases that are sent into the air
• environment = the world around us
• fossil fuel = material like coal, oil and gas that can be burned ; it is produced when plants and animals die over millions of years
• fuel = oil, gas, coal etc.. that we burn to produce  energy
• greenhouse = glass building used for growing vegetables, flowers and other plants
• greenhouse gas = a gas, especially carbon dioxide or methane,  that does not let the heat escape from our atmosphere and causes it to heat up
• impact = influence, effect
• living habit = the way we live
• local = produced in the area you live
• maintain = look after something and keep it in good condition by doing repairs regularly
• major = big
• measure = to find out how much something is
• persuade = to get others to think in the same way
• public transport = buses, trains etc… that everyone can use
• recycle = to use something over and over again
• reduce = make smaller, lower
• standby mode = to keep a machine ready so that it can be used immediately
• various = different kinds of
• vital = very important